In remembrance ...

Tuesday

Dec 7, 2010 at 12:01 AMJan 6, 2011 at 3:38 PM

FILE PHOTO JOHN T. BLACKBURN, COLUMBUS' FIRST WWII CASUALTY

On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the surprise Japanese raid on the U.S. Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii became one of the great defining moments in history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed "December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy."

According to the U.S. Navy, a single carefully planned and well-executed attack removed our Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into WWII as a full combatant.

The Japanese Navy sent an aircraft carrier force to Pearl Harbor, with its planes hitting just before 8 a.m., and within a short time, five of eight U.S. battleships were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out, and 2,402 Americans were dead (and 1,282 wounded).

Fears in central Ohio were heightened later that week, when ominous telegrams from the Navy began to reach the families of the Pearl Harbor casualties and the word spread.

The first to hear the bad news in Columbus was the family of John Thomas "Jack" Blackburn, a former OSU student who had died aboard the battleship USS Utah.

"Everyone was crying," remembered his cousin, Mildred McReynolds of Columbus, interviewed by The Dispatch in 1991 for a story commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. "His parents were just devastated. ... They had made three trips out to San Diego to visit him, and they were going to make a fourth at Christmas."

"Later, the commanding officer wrote to the family and said Jack had died a hero," McReynolds said. "He had a chance to save himself, but he stuck to his post until it was too late."

Blackburn was born in Columbus and attended Linden Elementary School and Indianola Junior High. A graduate of North High School, he loved opera and baseball and had joined the Navy at 19. After enlisting, he played second base on the ship's baseball team, batting .400.

He had just turned 21 in July 1941.

Blackburn Community Center on the Southeast Side is named in the young man's honor, as is the Blackburn Park playground nearby and Blackburn House residence hall at OSU, where he was a student for one year.

FILE PHOTO JOHN T. BLACKBURN, COLUMBUS' FIRST WWII CASUALTY

On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the surprise Japanese raid on the U.S. Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii became one of the great defining moments in history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed "December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy."

According to the U.S. Navy, a single carefully planned and well-executed attack removed our Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into WWII as a full combatant.

The Japanese Navy sent an aircraft carrier force to Pearl Harbor, with its planes hitting just before 8 a.m., and within a short time, five of eight U.S. battleships were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out, and 2,402 Americans were dead (and 1,282 wounded).

Fears in central Ohio were heightened later that week, when ominous telegrams from the Navy began to reach the families of the Pearl Harbor casualties and the word spread.

The first to hear the bad news in Columbus was the family of John Thomas "Jack" Blackburn, a former OSU student who had died aboard the battleship USS Utah.

"Everyone was crying," remembered his cousin, Mildred McReynolds of Columbus, interviewed by The Dispatch in 1991 for a story commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. "His parents were just devastated. ... They had made three trips out to San Diego to visit him, and they were going to make a fourth at Christmas."

"Later, the commanding officer wrote to the family and said Jack had died a hero," McReynolds said. "He had a chance to save himself, but he stuck to his post until it was too late."

Blackburn was born in Columbus and attended Linden Elementary School and Indianola Junior High. A graduate of North High School, he loved opera and baseball and had joined the Navy at 19. After enlisting, he played second base on the ship's baseball team, batting .400.

He had just turned 21 in July 1941.

Blackburn Community Center on the Southeast Side is named in the young man's honor, as is the Blackburn Park playground nearby and Blackburn House residence hall at OSU, where he was a student for one year.

* * *

William Halloran, a Cleveland native and 1938 graduate of the OSU School of Journalism, was killed aboard the USS Arizona. He was Cleveland's first WWII casualty.

Two other former Ohio State students died at Pearl Harbor: James Haverfield of Uhrichsville, Ohio, and Robert R. Scott of Massillon, Ohio.

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